multiple encoding specs (Re: IE5.0 does not conform to RFC2376)

[Gavin Thomas Nicol]

> Can you post some URIs? Are you willing to share them? I would trust
> your servlets to be doing the right thing.

I can probably release these. I'll check. I also have a few other
bits of code that I'm trying to release.

> > I still dislike the encoding information in the PI....
>
> (it isn't, in theory, a PI although it looks exactly like one) I am of
> quite the opposite point of view - I think that it finally
> gives authors the ability to correctly label their documents.

Right. My opinion though is that is does the right thing in the
wrong place.

> The same is true of any label. The encoding declaration in the XML
> declaration at least always travels with the document, which is always
> handy for ensuring metadata doesn't get lost.

Right. The problem is really one of *metadata* not *data*, that is precisely
my point. The *.mim proposal provided an *explicit* separation of the two.
In retrospect, I must say that *.mim us also woefully insufficient... but
that we still need, in some form, a way of encoding, and transporting,
in an interoperable manner, the information (metadata) that is needed
by *processors* of the data.

> But if you are transcoding, you have to fix it anyway - so?

Right, but

  a) You have to fix it by parsing a peice of arbitrary syntax, which
     proxies etc. will most likely not do, for performance reasons.
  b) The XML declaration is part of the *document* as specified by
     the XML 1.0 recommendation, changing the XML declaration changes
     the *document*, which is a Bad Thing(tm).




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